My Blood Legacy: Bloodlines

Chapter 178: Professional retreat? Violent retreat!

Victor and Nera were already on Bramford’s left flank when the city began to change its smell.

They had descended along the eastern side, gone around a row of low houses, and crossed two rooftops before reaching the position indicated by Mirella. Now they were crouched on an old dark-stone building, overlooking a narrow street that sloped down toward the unofficial warehouses. The place looked abandoned to anyone who glanced quickly, but Victor had already counted at least four doors with recent signs of use, two windows with people watching through cracks, and a man standing far too long on the corner pretending to smoke.

Nera was beside him, crouched, with the enormous scythe resting across her shoulders. She sniffed the air from time to time, making small faces, as if the entire city had been thrown into a pot with old blood, rotten fish, and lies. Victor was quieter than usual, keeping his presence erased, his blood flow low, and his body ready to move. It was good exercise. Bramford had too many people looking in the wrong direction, which meant someone had prepared the city to watch.

While they waited for the order, Victor glanced sideways at Nera.

"Can I ask something?"

"No."

"You do not even know what it is."

"You have the face of someone about to ask something irritating."

"That is very generic. I always have that face."

"Then shut up always."

Victor smiled and kept looking at the street.

"Why do you look like a child?"

Nera slowly turned her face toward him.

Her expression went flat.

"Repeat that."

"You clearly are not a child. You just look like one. So I got curious."

She rested the tip of the scythe on the rooftop with such calm that it made it worse.

"Shut your mouth, or I will open a new smile on your face with my scythe."

Victor shrugged.

"You are at least five hundred years old."

"I am going to cut off your balls."

"You can try."

"Then pull it out."

Victor looked at her.

Nera held his gaze with the seriousness of a professional assassin.

Victor sighed, as if the entire situation were perfectly normal, and began moving his hand toward his belt.

"Since you insist—"

"Hey, you two, are you ready?"

The voice entered their heads without warning.

Victor froze with his hand on his belt.

Nera looked at the empty air with immediate hatred, as if she could kill a mental voice.

"What the hell is this?" Victor asked, looking around.

Alexa’s voice answered with dry sarcasm:

"Thought communication. The ring I gave you was for that, idiot."

Victor stood still for a second.

Then he looked at his own hand. On his index finger was a simple ring of dark metal, with a small violet stone that barely glowed. He vaguely remembered Alexa handing it to him before the descent into Bramford, saying something about communication, a closed channel, and not losing the object. At the time, he had been more interested in seeing whether the ring reacted to Rowena’s jade ring. Since it did not react, he had stopped paying attention.

"Ah," he said.

Nera looked at him.

"You forgot?"

"I was busy."

"Doing what?"

"Thinking about important things."

Alexa’s voice returned, now a little more irritated:

"You know I can hear you when you answer out loud, right?"

Victor looked at Nera.

"She can hear?"

"I am going to cut the ring."

"Do not cut the ring," Alexa said. "If you cut it, Mirella will make you pay for it."

Nera made a face.

"I hate adults."

"You are older than many people on this mission," Victor commented.

The scythe moved one centimeter.

He smiled.

"Fine. I stopped."

Alexa sighed inside their minds, and the sensation was strange enough to irritate Victor. It was not like hearing a normal voice. It was more as if someone had placed a sentence directly in the center of his head and expected him to accept it. It was not invasive like control magic, but it was still unpleasant.

Victor rested his arms over his knees.

"How are things?"

"The target has been confirmed," Alexa answered. "Ghideon is in Bramford."

Nera stopped joking at once.

Her expression changed.

Victor also became more alert.

"Confirmed how?"

"Three false records with the same blood-signature flaw. A corpse found two hours ago with residual shadow trapped beneath the tongue. And a port inspector who died yesterday showed up working this morning."

Victor looked down at the street below.

"That sounds like confirmation."

"Yes. But there is a problem."

"What problem?"

Alexa did not answer immediately.

That delay was enough for Victor to feel something wrong.

Nera moved before he did.

Her scythe left her shoulder in a short, fast, violent arc, aimed at Victor’s head.

He ducked at the same instant, more by instinct than trust.

The blade passed over him and cut something behind him.

There was a wet sound.

Victor turned his face and saw a man appearing out of nowhere, now split from shoulder to chest. The body fell onto the rooftop in two poorly connected pieces, spilling dark blood over the tiles. The dead man’s skin trembled as if trying to keep a shape that was not his. The face melted first, then the fingers grew too long, and a thin shadow escaped from the open mouth before dissolving.

Nera yanked the scythe out of the corpse with irritation.

"You should thank me."

Victor slowly stood, looking at the body.

"Thank you for trying to cut my head off."

"You are welcome."

Alexa’s voice echoed in both their minds, now without any sarcasm:

"We have been detected."

Victor looked toward the street.

The man pretending to smoke on the corner was no longer there.

The cracks in the windows closed at the same time.

In the alley below, three shadows moved against the direction of the light.

Nera smiled, showing her teeth.

"Now can I hit?"

Victor let small black sparks run along his fingers.

"Now you can arrest."

She made a face.

"Boring."

"I thought so too."

In the ring, Alexa’s voice became faster.

"All groups, attention. Left flank compromised. Victor and Nera have been detected. Possible imitators in the warehouse zone. Do not trust any face."

Victor jumped from the rooftop before Alexa finished.

He landed in the alley silently, without letting his presence return completely. Nera landed beside him a second later, but she did not try to be silent. The scythe struck the ground hard enough to crack the stone.

A door opened at the end of the street.

Two men came out.

Then three more.

All of them had the same face.

Victor tilted his head.

"That is new."

Nera sniffed.

"They all stink wrong."

The five men smiled at the same time.

"Victor Valentine," they said together.

Victor looked at Nera.

"They know my name."

"You got famous."

"This is getting irritating."

One of the men took a step forward and opened his mouth. His tongue was black, covered in small shadow veins. He tried to say something, but Victor did not let him.

Black Lightning cracked at his ankle.

The movement was short.

An instant later, Victor was already in front of him, holding the imitator’s face with his right hand.

"Arrest first, right?"

Nera appeared behind another, hooking the scythe’s handle into his legs and dropping him face-first to the ground.

"That was what the captain said."

Victor smiled.

Black Ice climbed over the imitator’s head, covering mouth, nose, and eyes without immediately killing him.

"Then let us be professional."

The frozen imitator fell stiff.

The other four attacked.

Nera laughed like a child who had received a new toy and spun the scythe in a low arc, cutting tendons without severing limbs. Victor saw it and almost praised her. Almost. She really was trying not to kill, though she did it with the expression of someone being forced to eat vegetables.

The second imitator jumped back, but Victor spread Black Ice across the ground and trapped his foot for half a second. It was enough. Nera struck the man’s chest with the scythe’s handle and threw him against the wall. The impact cracked stone and ribs.

"Alive!" Victor warned.

"I know how to measure!"

"You just broke half of him."

"Half is still alive."

Victor had no time to answer. One of the imitators opened his own chest with his nails, and a liquid shadow came out from inside like a serpent. It went straight toward Victor’s face. He raised his hand and burned the thing with White Fire. The shadow twisted and released a thin, almost human sound before evaporating.

Alexa’s voice came again.

"Do not burn all the residue. We need a sample."

Victor looked at the air.

"Now you tell me?"

"You are too fast!"

"Complain to my training."

Nera kicked an imitator in the knee, heard the crack, and smiled.

"This one still has a tongue."

"Good," Alexa said. "Bring one alive."

Victor looked at the bodies in the alley. Two were frozen, one was writhing with a broken knee, another was pinned under Nera’s scythe, and the last was trying to crawl into a shadow on the wall.

"This one is escaping," Nera said.

Victor extended his hand.

Black Ice appeared inside the shadow, locking the passage as if the darkness had turned into glass. The imitator screamed, half his body outside, half trapped in the wall.

Victor walked to him and crouched.

"Hi."

The imitator looked at him with eyes that did not seem human.

"He already knows you came."

Victor smiled.

"Great. Saves us the introduction."

Nera rested the scythe on her shoulder.

"Can I cut out his tongue if he speaks in riddles?"

"No. We need information."

"Just a piece."

"Nera."

She huffed.

Alexa’s voice grew tenser.

"Victor, Nera, get out of there. The left flank is closing. There is movement coming from three streets."

Victor looked toward the rooftops.

Shadows began appearing on the edges.

Many of them.

Nera saw them and smiled again.

"Now it got fun."

Victor grabbed the trapped imitator by the collar and tore him out of the frozen shadow with force. Part of his skin stayed on the wall.

"I agree."

Alexa practically shouted in their minds:

"I said get out, not start a war!"

Victor threw the unconscious prisoner over his shoulder and looked at Nera.

"Professional retreat?"

Nera cracked her neck.

"Violent retreat."

"That works."

The two disappeared from the alley at the same instant the shadows advanced.